A coroner has ruled that the death of the father of a Welsh Assembly member was accidental.

North-East Wales coroner John Gittins said while the care given to Jack Finch, 91, and father of Janet Finch Saunders AM, was “exemplary” communication between healthcare professionals and relatives was at times “woefully lacking”.

He said the death on April 7 last year followed an operation to remove an infected replacement knee joint at Ysbyty Glan Clwyd the previous day and was the “unintended consequence” of surgery.

Mr Finch, from Penrhyn Bay, died from “acute heart failure as a result of chronic hypertensive and valvular heart disease”.

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Giving evidence earlier during the inquest, an emotional Mrs Finch-Saunders had said she wasn’t even afforded the “dignity of being with my dad when he died”.

She said: “He was shouting ‘help, help me Janet’. He was pointing at his leg and asking for help. It took an hour and a half for him to get pain relief.

“When he was dying I was asked to go outside. They just blew some bellows into him. We were told he had chest compressions but I was with my daughter, we were there looking through a crack in the blinds.

“He didn’t have chest compressions.”

Janet Finch-Saunders AM (Image: Free editorial use)

However, Dr Ramakrishnan said Mr Finch did receive “a few chest compressions” but felt it was “futile and would be undignified for Mr Finch to continue”.

The inquest heard Mr Finch, a former county councillor and mayor of Llandudno from Penrhyn Bay, Conwy, had been having problems with his leg after a series of falls which culminated in him breaking his tibia and fibula.